


Gay Bar Superstar

by jakia



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-07
Updated: 2012-11-07
Packaged: 2017-11-18 04:47:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/557054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jakia/pseuds/jakia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU.  Kurt never spied at Dalton, and so never met Blaine.  Ten years later, they meet at a gay bar in West Hollywood.  Anthropologist!Blaine x make up artist!Kurt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gay Bar Superstar

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks too to rainbowrites for looking over this for me and being awesome and stuff!

He was cute. Not in a “I would bang him like a screen door in a hurricane” type cute, but in the sensible “I want to run my hands through his hair and steal his glasses” type of cute. He was dressed atrociously, like an overgrown Boy Scout had married Stephen Hawking, and gave birth to that monstrosity of an outfit. But in some ways, his outfit—combined with his unruly hair, scruffy face, and super thick glasses—were part of why Kurt couldn’t take his eyes off of him.  
  
As for why he was in the seediest gay bar West Hollywood had to offer, well, Kurt couldn’t  _wait_ to find out.  
  
Which is why he approached the gentleman’s table with a gin and tonic in one hand, and whiskey sour in the other. “Pick your poison.” He said with a flirty wink, setting the two drinks down on the table. “Mind if I join you?”  
  
The man smiled back at him, gesturing to the open seat in front of him. “I  _was_ wondering if you were ever going to buy me a drink. You’ve been staring at me all night, you know? You aren’t exactly subtle.”  
  
“Can’t help it,” Kurt laughed as Blaine picked up the glass of whiskey. “I was  _fascinated_. After all, you’re one of the few here who isn’t in drag. Don’t you know it’s Drag Queen Friday?”  
  
“Well, I just got off work. Didn’t have time to change.” He said with a wink, like maybe if you asked him nicely enough, he’d wear whatever you wanted him to. Kurt mentally filed away that information for later.  
  
“Ah, and what do you do for a living, sir? Overgrown boy scout? Professional nerd?”  
  
The man shook his head, but held out his hand for Kurt to shake. “Dr. Blaine Anderson, anthropologist.”  
  
Kurt smiled. “Kurt Hummel, Hollywood Make-Up Artist.”  
  
“Oooh,  _fancy_.”  
  
“Maybe not compared to a  _doctor_ , but it pays the bills. Plus I get to play with fake blood all day, so, you know, benefits!”  
  
“Sounds like fun!” Blaine smiles widely, taking a sip of the whiskey Kurt bought him. “I play in the dirt and try to find remains so, you know, also fun!”  
  
“Ah, so you try and find dinosaur bones?”  
  
“No, that would be a  _paleontologist_. I’m an  _anthro_ pologist, so I try to find  _human_ bones.”  
  
“Creeeepppy.”  
  
Blaine snickered into his drink. “Says the man who just said he enjoys playing with fake blood all day!”  
  
“Good point.” Kurt couldn’t argue with that. “So, what’s an anthropolwhatsit doing here?”  
  
Blaine winked at him. “A man can’t want to have a drink?”  
  
Kurt snorted. “What, by himself? On a Friday night? And directly after work, not even stopping home to change clothes? Methinks you might be avoiding someone.”  
  
“Methinks you might be right.” Blaine swirled his whiskey, like maybe he could convince it to talk for him. “I live with my brother. And he’s---“  
  
“—Difficult to live with?” Kurt hazarded a guess.  
  
“You could say that,” Blaine grinned cheekily. “You could also say he’s a giant pain in the ass. And he’s only gotten worse since he’s gotten this acting role.”  
  
“Ohhh, so he’s an actor. That explains a lot of it.”  
  
“Isn’t everyone in Hollywood?”  
  
Kurt poked him gently with a toothpick. “Obviously not, Mr. Antrhopolwhatsit.”  
  
“Hey now, that’s  _Doctor_ Anthropolwhatsit to you, sir.” Blaine poked him back, earning a wide smile from Kurt in return. “I bet you’re used to dealing with egotistical actors though, in your line of work.”  
  
“Oh, I  _wanted_ to be an egotistical actor, sweetheart.” Kurt smiled, taking another long sip of his gin. “That’s why I came to Hollywood in the first place. I got rejected from my first school of choice in New York, so I decided to try my hand on the opposite coast.”  
  
“And that led to make-up?”  
  
Kurt poked him with a toothpick again, this time at his exposed skin. “Don’t interrupt a story, Mister.”  
  
“ _Doctor_.”  
  
“Whatever,” Kurt grinned. “So I tried acting here.”  
  
“And?”  
  
“I realized I hate other actors. And directors. Mostly directors.” Kurt downed the rest of his gin in one gulp. “ ‘Can’t pass’ they said. ‘Too feminine’ they said. ‘Maybe if you perform in drag’ they said.”  
  
“Kurt!” Blaine snorted into his whiskey. “That’s horrible! Why would they say that?”  
  
“Because I look and sound like a woman?” Kurt offered, playing with the ends of his scarf and trying to avoid eye contact.  
  
“I don’t think you look like a woman.” Blaine said sincerely, his eyes sparkling beneath his glasses. “I think you look magical. Like a---like a fairy, or maybe an elf. Something beautiful, but out of this world.”  
  
It was the nicest thing anyone had said about Kurt in months. He dropped his scarf and stared. “Mr. Dr. Anderson,” he said quietly, suddenly shy. “Would you—like to come back to my apartment? With me?”  
  
The good doctor winked at him before finishing the rest of his drink. “But Mr. Hummel, I’ve only had one drink. How can I tell all my friends about all the wild drunken monkey sex we’ll have if I’m not even tipsy?”  
  
Kurt cackled, hitting him light in the shoulder. “If we stay here too long, I’ll make you sing karaoke with me.”  
  
But Blaine’s eyes lit up like starlight. “ _Oh_ , can we?”  
  


* * *

  
  
Kurt hasn’t sung on a stage in years, but he’s not nervous. Not really. And if he was, the second gin and tonic he just downed probably helped with that.  
  
Blaine, on the other hand, bounced around like a kid in a candy shop. “Oooh, Katy Perry!” He exclaimed, eyes raking over the available song list. “Can I sing Katy Perry to you, Kurt?”  
  
“You can,” Kurt agreed, reading the list over Blaine’s shoulder. “But be warned that I’ll judge you for it.”  
  
“How  _much_  judgment?” Blaine asked hesitantly.  
  
“ _Lots_ of judgment. As in, you’ve already lost cool points just for suggesting it.”  
  
Blaine winked at him. “What if I sang it in Italian?”  
  
The thought of Blaine singing  _anything_ in Italian sent shivers down Kurt’s spine. Still--- “It’s tempting, but I’m not sure even soothing Italian can fix Katy Perry.”  
  
Blaine whistled. “Sounds like I’m going to have to step up my game, then” he handed the list over to the bored attendant. “Adele,  _Someone Like You.”_  
  
“Ooooh,  _Adele_ ,” Kurt cooed. “Someone gets a couple of cool points back. Which is good, because you needed them after showing up in a boy scout uniform.”  
  
Blaine pinched him. “Be nice.”  
  
“Or what?” Kurt flirted brazenly.  
  
Blaine poked him again. “Or else I won’t seduce you via song.”  
  
Kurt coughed into his third glass of gin. “You’re going to  _seduce_ me? With a _breakup song_?”  
  
“It’s  _Adele_ , how can you  _not_  be seduced?” Blaine argued, like that was the most sound logic in the entire world. Kurt couldn’t help but roll his eyes at him.  
  
“I don’t even know if you can sing.”  
  
“I’ll have you know I was in show choir for all four years of high school.”  
  
“Really.” Kurt purred. “So was I. And my team won Nationals my senior year! Swallow that why don’t you?” Kurt grinned, bumping Blaine with his shoulder. “Did your team ever win anything?”  
  
Blaine laughed. “Sadly, no. I think a capella pop was too specific a genre to hold universal appeal. We did make it to Regionals a couple of times, but we kept losing to this school in Lima, so—“  
  
Kurt nearly dropped his drink. “Wait a second. Back up.  _Lima_. As in,  _Lima, Ohio?”_  
  
“Yeah!” Blaine exclaimed. “That’s where I’m from, though I graduated from Dalton Academy in—“  
  
“--Westerville?”  
  
Blaine’s eyes widened. “How’d you know that?”  
  
Kurt stared at him for a moment. “Blaine. I’m  _from_  Lima. I went to McKinley. I was in—“  
  
“—The New Directions, oh my  _God_.” Blaine laughed loudly. “What a bizarre coincidence! Of all the bars in West Hollywood, am I right?”  
  
Kurt stared at him a little bit longer, trying to place him exactly—  
  
“Oh my  _God_ , you sang lead for the Warblers, didn’t you?” Blaine nodded enthusiastically. He was older now, with fluffy hair rather than gelled back curls, a scruffy beard on what was once a clean-shaven face, but Kurt could almost see how the well-put together lead singer grew up to become the scruffy doctor. “I had the  _biggest_ crush on you, oh my  _God_.”  
  
Blaine snorted whiskey out his nose. “Wait, what?”  
  
“You sang  _Teenage Dream_  at Sectionals,” Kurt breathed out heavily as the memory flooded back to him, the good and the bad. He had been so painfully alone back then. Almost as alone as he was now. “I was having such a hard time at school then, and then you sang and I was in  _love_. I took your picture with my phone and put it in my locker and everything. Oh my  _God_.”  
  
Blaine poked at the attendant again. “Can I change my song? Sorry. I’d like to sing  _Teenage Dream_  please.” He turned his attention back to Kurt, his eyes sparkling again. He grabbed Kurt’s hand and squeezed it gently. “I wish you had talked to me back then! I had no idea.”  
  
“I thought you were straight,” Kurt confessed, breathing a little heavier than normal. “And I wasn’t—I wasn’t in a good place, back then. Especially not with boys I had a crush on.”  
  
Blaine squeezed his hand again. “We could have been friends though, at least. Would that have been okay?”  
  
 _I can’t even imagine a universe in which you and I are only just friends._  “I—maybe.” He said with a small smile. “But hey, look, I think you’re up next.”  
  
Blaine leaned forward and kissed Kurt quietly on the mouth. “Be right back. Please be seduced.  Um, again.”  
  
 _I already am._  
  


* * *

 

He hadn’t changed a bit. Sure, the outfit wasn’t as nice as the Dalton uniform, and the backing soundtrack wasn’t as cool as the a capella Warblers had been, but his voice was still just as dreamy as ever.  
  
For a brief and haunting moment, Kurt felt seventeen again, waiting in a strange auditorium for the New Direction’s chance to perform, feeling sick to his stomach because all he’d been able to think about for weeks was Dave Karofsky’s harassment, and it kept getting worse and worse. His dad had almost taken him out of McKinley when he found out, but he hadn’t known where else to send him.  
  
Kurt had even declined to sing a solo at Sectionals, which let the rest of his friends know how bad the situation really was. At which point they staged an intervention with Karofsky and things were okay until the bully finally transferred out of the school and Kurt never heard from him again, thank God.  
  
But during those few weeks Kurt had genuinely felt like he was going to  _die_ because some closeted bully decided to kiss him against his will.  
  
Listening to Blaine had been the first time in months that he had felt alive again. The Blaine on stage sang his heart out, smiled and winked directly at Kurt, and it was just—it’d had been a  _crush_. Just a simple, normal, everyday crush. He used have crushes on random people every day of the week. But he hadn’t in a while, for a multitude of reasons, and in that moment, watching Blaine perform on stage, he had felt  _normal_. Blessedly, simply  _normal_.  
  
And in that moment, feeling normal had been the best feeling in the world. That was why he had clung to his crush on the nameless, beautiful Warbler for so long, at least until he had met Chandler. And when that relationship had ended in flames he packed his bags and headed for California, and never looked back.  
  
And now the boy his seventeen year old self had crushed on for over a year was singing to him directly in a seedy bar in West Hollywood.  
  
 _[You think I'm pretty, without any make-up on](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QA0WNtUWoHM)_  
  
Life could be so  _weird_  sometimes.  
  


* * *

  
  
Kurt got Blaine into his bed eventually that night.  
  
The fact that he jumped him the second he got off stage might’ve helped speed things along a little bit. After that, it had taken a gentle tug on his tie and whispered “ _My place?_ ” to get him to groan and follow.  
  
His seventeen year old fantasies had been spot on: Blaine  _was_  an excellent kisser, the type who kissed tongue-first, like he wanted to taste absolutely everything Kurt had to offer. Having him here, shirtless and writhing in Kurt’s bed, was like a dream ten years in the making finally coming true.  
  
Kurt had barely brushed his palm over Blaine’s aching bulge when Blaine pushed him off suddenly. “Wait, stop.”  
  
Kurt lifted slowly, pausing to give Blaine’s chest one last quick peck. “What’s wrong?”  
  
Blaine’s face was completely flushed, either from activities, or—Kurt figured, something else. “Um, this is going to sound stupid,” Blaine sat up quietly, his cheeks rosy. “But, um, I don’t want to have sex?”  
  
Kurt stared at him.  
  
“I mean, I want to have sex with you,  _obviously_.” He laughed awkwardly, gesturing towards his pants. “But. Um. Not today.”  
  
Kurt blinked at him slowly. “I don’t understand. Did I do something--?”  
  
“No!” Blaine exclaimed suddenly, sitting up and placing his arms around Kurt. “No, it’s not you! It’s me! And I mean that, I’m not just—“ he laughed quietly, running a hand through his messy curls. “Um. My first boyfriend, Sebastian, he— _well_ , he was just using me for sex. And I let him do—basically whatever he wanted, because I thought he cared about me, you know? But he didn’t care about me at all, and he just pressured me into sex, so now I, um,” If he hadn’t been blushing before, he was definitely blushing now. “I don’t put out until the third date.”  
  
Kurt busted out laughing immediately.  
  
Blaine blushed harder and tried to bury himself in a pillow. “You think I’m stupid.”  
  
“I think you’re  _adorable_.” Kurt laughed, pressing a soft kiss to Blaine’s forehead. “And I think it’s admirable, because a lot of people just—fall into bed with each other, and don’t get to know each other first. I mean, I made my first boyfriend wait until I was ready, but then as I got older I just kind of—stopped. I don’t mind waiting for you,” he pressed another gentle kiss to Blaine’s mouth. “Especially since I think this means you want to date me?”  
  
Blaine’s eyes were sparkling. “Oh, I  _so_ want to date you, Kurt Hummel.” He kissed him again, pulling him back into bed with him. “I think sixteen year old me would have loved to, too.”  
  
“Hmmm,” Kurt sighed happily, wrapped in Blaine’s arms. “You don’t have to leave, you know. You can sleep over so you can continue to avoid your brother.” He yawned, snuggling deeper into Blaine’s embrace. “I promise, pants will stay on. And maybe in the morning we can go get coffee and discuss these dates you’d like to go on?”  
  
Blaine frowned. “I have to be at the dig site at six am, or else I’d totally take you up on that coffee offer.” He kissed him gently. “However, I happen to be an  _excellent_ snuggler, and would love to fall asleep in your arms, provided you don’t mind me setting an alarm on my phone so I can sneak back into my apartment and shower before going into work.”  
  
Kurt patted his belly sleepily. “That sounds fine. How does a dinner date sound to you?”  
  
“Sound amazing.”  
  
“Good,” Kurt yawned, curling up against Blaine. “I have the perfect thing in mind.”  
  


* * *

  
  
**END**


End file.
